What's New In The Yarn Store

"Stand Only"

What we mean by "Stand Only" is that it only available at the stand; it has a barcode number all its own & we rarely put it on the site for online sales. This is an exception. Why? Well, why not; we change.

This is a natural color and sometimes you don't get what your looking for when dyeing natural colors. This color is pretty and very sellable but it doesn't match the color of the picture on the site; we call it "stand only" or in a 'limited edition'.

This "Stand Only" yarn is a natural Osage dipped in a natural Indigo; it has 12 other skeins in the same dye lot; it is a worsted weight singles (2 ounces = 140 yards) to be knit with US #8 needles.

Every time we dye a natural color it's as if we're dying a new color even though we've dyed the same color many times before.

What do Natural Dyes teach us, what do we respect about them—in many cases the color comes out as it wants to—?—bemused, we respect the color out of the dye bath...what can one do? Natural dyes are beautiful and ancient (dating to prehistory) and we must remember them with ancient, non-regular and pre-industrial ideas.

That's Natural Dyes and the varied colors they produce; the variation of colors has been forgotten with modern citric dyes.

Indigo Over Cochineal is a dark color and available in the Worsted Yarn Store. A 2 ounce skein measures 140 yards.

New Dark Natural Colors

Deep Purple And Deep Indigo

We did something different; we used an Iron (Fe) mordant on yarn and then we dyed it a natural Madder. That is the dark purple color that you see on the top of the photo, then we dipped that purple Madder into a natural bath of Indigo and we got the dark blue color that you see on the bottom of the photo.

These colors from Iron mordants are incredibly dark for Natural Dyes.

Deep Purple and Deep Indigo are available in the Worsted Yarn Store. A 2 ounce skein measures 140 yards.

A New Green In Half And Half

Wintergreen

We have a new green in our Half and Half yarn and it is available in the Playful Yarn Store. It's a sport weight skein that weighs 2 ounces and measures 175yards in length.

With twine we suspend an undyed skein from an overhead support and lower half of it into a dye bath.

Purple Sage In A Sport Weight

Purple Sage

Saxon Merino yarn in a Sport Weight, a 2 ply, 2 oz (50 g), 175 yd, 6.5 stitches per inch on US 5. Our Saxon Merino sheep graze outside all year in New York State. The wool is American grown and spun. We love purples and we concoct and dye new ones all the time.

The values of Super Bulky Yarn, 4 ounces measures 110 yards, are too dark-take a look and see if you agree with us-even though some of those dark colors are our top sellers. Not to disturb the established color story, we thought we'd add to it and make it broader by lightening the values with new colors.

We kept what we had (see below: Saxon Merino Super Bulky Yarn: New Colors) and dyed new colors: Dawn, Creme and now Touched Green which would make a lovely Robin Hood scarf or a hat for a younger person. I wonder if Ravelry would have a pattern.

This yarn is baby-soft; it's from the finest wool we have and it is spun entirely from the lambs that were born on the property. It's Average Fiber Diameter (AFD) is 17.4 microns. A 2 ounce skein measures 140 yards. 1 skein will make a hat, 2 will make socks or mittens, 3 will make a large scarf and 8-10 will make a very soft jumper.

Look at the many patterns for worsted weight yarns (2oz=140yd) on Ravelry.

We dyed two new colors, Aube and Creme, of Super Bulky Yarn; it's become are most popular weight (a 4 ounce skein measures 110 yards) of yarn. We thought we'd broaden the color story with some lighter hues.

They weren't sure they could make a yarn as thick (the weight) as I wanted. David Ritchie (the proprietor of the spinnery whom I met when I was about to buy my first 5 merino sheep almost 30 years ago) was reluctant; so I said, "Try it, David..." and he did and it worked—we have a most lovely and thick Super Bulky Yarn. This is custom spun Saxon Merino yarn from the spinnery and it goes with our custom hand-dyeing of colors at the farm.

Let's call a spade, a spade; or better, a purl stitch what it is: nowhere offshore can you get a unique weight of yarn spun like this furthermore in a unique color dyed by artisans on an American farm. Bigness is shrinking away from an economy of scale—local food led the way—back to an economy of the small that is person-sized and comfy like the knitting in your lap.

We have an advantage: we have our own sheep who are local to the land they graze, and we are small and work with small, local people who love their work. We may spin 100 pounds of this in a worsted or maybe 100 pounds of in a fingering to dye in luscious colors and we, you and I—knitter and shepherd—decide the colors of the Saxon Merino Yarn that becomes ours.

When we looked at the colors of our Super Bulky Yarn, we realized we needed to dye lighter hues to give our color story balance. Next we'll dye a light purple and a wispy green and maybe a Pumpkin color or two, too.

All our colors are limited edition and we will continue to produce them as long as they sell—we did a pound of Aube and Creme (four 4 ounce skeins)—and we may dye another pound to give the new colors a fair outing. If you don't like them and they sit around the stand at Union Square Greenmarket like drooping wallflowers then we may change the color by mixing different proportions of the same recipe, or even a new recipe, until we get the color right. We please ourselves as we please you.